Is seeing believing? Chilling 'Frontline' suggests some criminal cases areless than open-and-shut

Here's what Jennifer Thompson saw one terrible night in July
1984: the ruthless gaze of a man who had broken into her apartment in
the small North Carolina town where she was attending college.
She was raped and held hostage by that man before she managed to
escape. Her attacker then went to a nearby house and repeated his
crime.
But which man did Jennifer Thompson see?
Was it Ronald Cotton, a local man with a police record who was in
the neighborhood on the night of the attacks? Thompson picked
Cotton's photograph from six mug shots shown her at police
headquarters. Based on her testimony - and Cotton's clumsy alibi - he
was convicted of her rape and sent to prison for life.
But as a chilling new "Frontline," titled "What Jennifer
Saw," explains, Thompson identified the wrong man. It took 11 years
and hard DNA evidence to prove that Bobby Poole, another local
troublemaker, was the real attacker.
In fact, Cotton probably would still be in prison were it not for
the lead detective on Thompson's case, Mike Gauldin, who had the
foresight to save the bloodstained evidence.
In 1995 new technology that permitted DNA testing showed
conclusively that Cotton had not raped Thompson - and that Poole had.
"Frontline," at 8 tonight on Channel 19, carefully reviews the
case and interviews all the major players, each of whom speaks with
admirable candor and humility.
"I can recall early on in my career as a police officer hearing
that there were people in prison that ought not be there, and
thinking, 'That's probably a bunch of malarkey,' " Gauldin says.
"What the Ronald Cotton case tells me (is) that regardless of what
your intentions were, (and) how well you did your job, he's somebody
that shouldn't have been in prison."
"Frontline" reveals the subtle process of persuasion by which
victims and their defenders seal the fate of the likely perpetrator.
Having identified the perp, the prosecution then chased all doubt and
second-guessing out of the picture.
Their case was anything but airtight - it was essentially
Thompson's word against Cotton's - yet on two occasions a jury found
him guilty. The second time, Cotton was convicted on both counts,
even though Victim No. 2 did not pick him out of the initial lineup.
Only when a law professor at the University of North Carolina got
interested in the case did someone begin poking at this house of
cards. Barry Scheck makes an appearance here defending DNA tests - a
bit incongruously, given his performance at the O.J. Simpson criminal
trial - but you suspect that the real avant-garde of this new
scientific method are those idealistic souls sitting in classrooms
and faculty lounges across the country.
Rolando Cruz, for instance, a young man sent to death row for a
sensational murder-rape in a Chicago suburb he did not commit, was
liberated by a pesky group of journalism students.
The sad truth is that law enforcement does not have the time to
look into every allegation of wrongful conviction. After all, if you
ask them, most of those in prison will be happy to tell you why they
didn't do it. On the other side of the coin, most victims believe -
and need to believe - that the person they put in jail is the
perpetrator.
In the courtroom with the falsely accused and the actual rapist -
both of whom are black - Thompson, a white woman, could not recognize
Poole's face.
"I still see Ronald Cotton," she says, "and I am not saying
that to point a finger. I am just saying that is who I see. I
would do anything to erase that face out of my mind, but I can't."
Thompson has been through a horrifying ordeal and is tormented by
that image of her attacker - a false image, no less - every day.
"No one is ever going to hail me as someone who has survived 11
years of imprisonment," she says ruefully. "You can't see my bars,
you can't see my prison, but they are (there). The table's turned."
Actually, the table had turned long before Cotton was released
from jail. In this broadcast we see some old footage of him singing
"I Shall Not Be Moved" with fellow inmates in the gospel choir. It
is one of the most affecting images you are going to see on TV this
year: a forgotten and condemned man enjoying a foretaste of the
freedom he believes will be his - someday.